Two thousand dollars. Two. Thousand. Dollars. That’s what I’ve now spent on medical bills for my ten-year-old dog, Heidi. And she’s still not right. She’s drinking about 3 times her normal amount of water, which can be a sign of several things, none of them good.  Back to the vet in the morning (sigh).

Say what you will about Democrats, but I don’t recall them behaving anywhere near this badly after a loss.  Maybe they just have more practice.

McCain’s people, who spent the past couple of months implying that anyone who thought Sarah Palin wasn’t qualified to be VP was just an elitist, are now describing her as an out-of-control hillbilly shopoholic who didn’t know that Africa is a continent.   Nice.  And now she is finally going on TV and doing interviews.  Better late than never, I guess, but doesn’t she have a day job?

The election is looking more like a blowout.  Both candidates are in red states on the final day of campaigning, with McCain even making a stop in Arizona.  And reports are that McCain has had to gut his get-out-the-vote efforts in order to remain competitive in advertising in the final days.

To further illustrate McCain’s dire condition, the WaPost yesterday noted that of 159 national polls taken over the past six weeks, McCain has failed to lead in a single one of them.

I’m upping my prediction to Obama by 10 points nationally, and a margin of 130 electoral votes.

With only four days to go, it seems that Obama has the election sewn up.  There have been a few polls that indicate tightening, but then again the media has to have something to talk about.  The story since the financial crisis hit has been that Obama has won, and they need the story to change.

Despite the faux drama, I think it will be an early night Tuesday.  The polls generally show Obama with a 5+ point national lead.  Races often tighten at the end, except when they don’t.  I’m thinking of the Carter/Reagan election of 1980, when pollsters were saying it would be close, and it wasn’t.   Given Obama’s superior turn-out-the-vote operation, he will probably exceed the polling numbers.  I think it will be a 7-point or slightly larger margin, with Obama winning by close to 100 electoral votes.

Personally I didn’t care very much until the past few weeks.  But McCain’s performance has been erratic and at times revolting, and the choice of Sarah Palin is completely disqualifying, so I will be voting for Obama while keeping my fingers crossed for the next four years.  Obama is clearly smart, disciplined and pragmatic. He surrounds himself with highly competent people and gets the best out of them.  If the way he has run his campaign is any indication, and I think it is, then the sort of rampant incompetence that has been the hallmark of the Bush administration will come to an end.  We will see.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here trying to decide how late I need to stay to avoid traffic during what will probably be the worst rush hour of the year in Atlanta.  Halloween is a nightmare every year, and this year it’ll probably be even worse, since it’s on a Friday.

Last night as I drove up to my building I noticed there were two police cruisers and an ambulance parked out front on Glen Iris Drive.  I didn’t think much of it, and pulled into the parking garage.  By the time I’d wound my way up to the fifth floor of the deck it had left my consciousness completely.

As I came into the building I immediately noticed that there were several cops down at my end of the long hall.  I got closer and it was clear they were clustered around my door, along with the EMT’s and a couple of my neighbors.  They looked like they were about to kick the door down.

I has a sick feeling in my stomach as I asked what was going on.  Then I saw it: a large pool of blood, maybe three square feet of it, oozing from under my door.   It was a scene straight out of a cheap horror film.

I gave the cops my keys and they opened my door.  My dog reacted by barking so they didn’t want to go in.  They let me go in, though, and I calmed her down.  It turns out that the blood was hers.  She had a treatment for heartworms the previous day and had reacted badly.  The blood was actually bloody diarhea.  Since she wasn’t really eating or drinking it was more blood than anything else, actually, and there was a lot of it.   A couple more large pools, deep red and syrupy thick, and several smaller ones were inside, with blood drops scattered all around and even on the walls.

I took Heidi to the emergency vet and they put her on fluids and various drugs, and she’s there still.  It looks like she’ll be ok, but she won’t come home until she’s eating and able to keep food down.  This whole thing is costing me a fortune.

Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve come home to find cops about to storm your condo with a pool of blood oozing from under the door.

There’s been a lot of speculation the past couple of days about what Hillary wants, now that she’s lost the race for the nomination. I’ll tell you what she wants: she wants for Barack Obama to lose the election, and she’ll do whatever she needs to (short of destroying her own career) to see that it happens.

First of all, she does not want to be Vice President. That’s ludicrous. Some people have speculated that her hinting around about it really just means she wants to be asked. No, actually, she doesn’t. What she wants to do is to bully Obama to the extent that he can’t possibly offer it to her, because it would make him look weak. Then she can play the victim some more in the hopes that her supporters will be outraged and stay at home or vote for McCain.

You read it here first.

I alluded to this a few days ago, but I’m a little creeped out by LinkedIn’s list of “people you might know.” It keeps telling me I might know this woman who lives in another state and who works in a profession and industry that’s completely unrelated to mine. Some of my connections know some of her connections, but that’s got to be true of thousands of people.

The thing is, it’s right. I do know her. I haven’t talked to her in about nine years, but for a while she lived in Atlanta and was a member of a social club that a girl I used to date belonged to. She was a friend of a friend as was at my house socially several times, and vice versa. For the life of me I can’t figure out how LinkedIn knows that.

After a very cool spring, hot summer weather finally arrived this week, and just in time I broke my fucking air conditioning.

Actually what I seem to have broken is my thermostat. It’s one of those fancy computerized jobs they have now, with one part that attaches to the wall permanently and a module that sort of plugs into it that has the actual controls. I accidentally unplugged the damn thing. Now as long as it’s unplugged it seems to function — I can set the time and temperature at least. But as soon as I plug it back into the wall it goes nuts. All the LCD segments light up at the same time and sort of flicker, and it doesn’t do a damn thing about turning the AC on. And I can’t get anyone out to take a look at it until next Monday. It’s 90 degrees out there as I write this. I’m at the office, but I bet my poor dog is dying at home.

What the hell was ever wrong with a bimetallic strip?

Obama clinched the nomination tonight and Hillary’s speech, which was not a concession, seemed ungracious to some. After someone in the Clinton camp, by way of explanation, emailed CNN that tonight — the night when a major party finally nominated an African-American — “had to be Hillary’s night,” commentator Jeffry Toobin accused the Clintons of “deranged narcissism.” I’m not sure about the deranged part, but the case for narcissism is airtight.

I’ve always had the subjective impression that Hillary talks mainly about herself, whereas Obama speaks very inclusively. To quantify that, I looked at transcripts of both their speeches tonight and counted the use of the word “I.” Results for Obama: 25 “I”’s in 2472 words. Clinton: 65 “I”’s in 2237.

Over the weekend I read somewhere (The Economist, I think) that Bob Barr displayed a hint of a libertarian streak, long ago. Prior to 9/11 he sponsored a bill to prohibit the government from designating foreign organizations as terrorist groups and denying them entry visas. Way to go Bob!

An interesting thing about Bob’s candidacy is that he may put the state of Georgia in play for Obama, drawing votes from McCain due to his name recognition in the state, and his appeal to social conservatives (despite his now being a phoney-baloney libertarian). Therefore, I have a strategy. Starting in September some time I will flood the Atlanta paper, and other papers in the state, with letters to the editor. They’ll be full of outrage that any libertarian could think of voting for such a staunch social conservative. I’ll point out his conservative positions and his anti-immigrant positions, and how much more socially conservative he really is than John McCain. Somehow I’ll work in McCain’s leniency on immigration, and the fact that Barr still runs a GOP PAC. The target of course will be the not-so-bright right-wingnuts who are tempted to abandon McCain anyway.

Eh, I have to do something to keep myself amused.

Filled up the Jeep this morning at a record price: $3.969 at the station on North Avenue across from the Varsity. Sixty two dollars and change, which was not a personal record (which still stands at $64.32) because it only took 15.7 gallons.

The search for new wheels continues, with increasing emphasis on fuel economy.